here() function

Hi Eve,

Some time ago, Kent TAMURA in our group asked, What should here() return
when it appears as follows:

<e> h<!-- yikes -->ere()/...</e>

I would like to add to that by asking, what should happen below:

<e>here()/... | <!-- yikes times two --> here()/...</e>

In the first case, I think the text node containing the 'h' should be
returned.  In the second case, we could have each instance of here() return
the text node containing it, but it's a bit weird that two calls to a
function in the same expression actually return different values.

This brings up still a third question about the XPath (and hence the
XPointer) data model.  I have always assumed that building an XPath
implementation requires an XML processor that retains comments since comment
nodes must be represented in the data model.  But, if I execute an XPath
expression that removes all comment nodes, do consecutive text nodes get
merged in the resultant node-set? The XPath spec indicates that they are
merged, but I thought that was only on input.  Now I wonder...

Thanks,
John Boyer
Development Team Leader,
Distributed Processing and XML
PureEdge Solutions Inc.
Creating Binding E-Commerce
v: 250-479-8334, ext. 143  f: 250-479-3772
1-888-517-2675   http://www.PureEdge.com <http://www.pureedge.com/>





-----Original Message-----
From: Eve L. Maler [mailto:Eve.Maler@east.sun.com]
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2000 3:31 PM
To: Michael Dyck; jboyer@PureEdge.com
Cc: www-xml-linking-comments@w3.org
Subject: Re: XPath Serialization


John and Michael,

The XML Linking WG has discussed the issue of here(), and has agreed to
change the definition so that it returns the node that the XPointer is
actually in.  We hope this satisfies your concerns.

Best regards,

	Eve
--
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center    elm @ east.sun.com

Received on Thursday, 24 August 2000 17:33:28 UTC